Suffolk remembers residents killed on 9/11

Standing on a hillside overlooking the monument where his son's name is engraved among 178 Suffolk County residents killed on 9/11, Henry Hughes said he did not need to pause and remember.

He said he thinks nonstop about his 30-year-old son, Kris Hughes, a securities trader from Nesconset who died in the World Trade Center almost 10 years ago.

"The only time I don't, I guess, is when I'm asleep," Henry Hughes said.

The Nesconset resident joined about 400 others Thursday night to pay homage to victims of the attacks at an event held at Suffolk County's Gardens of Remembrance outside the H. Lee Dennison county building in Hauppauge. For Henry Hughes, it was also a way for him to show respect for his son and those who built the memorial.

Below where Henry Hughes, 62, stood, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said what was being remembered this week was the sense that on Sept. 12, the day after the attacks, our concern for "family, friends and our values" were more important than our worries on Sept. 10. Timed so as not to conflict with this weekend's events, so that families could attend Sunday's memorial in Manhattan, about 200 people -- many the family and friends of people whose names are engraved on the glass panels in the memorial -- sat soberly on metal chairs on the lawn near the building.

They listened as several speakers, among them Richard Stockinger, chief of the county's fire academy, recalled lost friends. Stockinger remembered Raymond Meisenheimer, 46, of West Babylon and Pete C. Martin, 43, of Miller Place. Both were instructors at the fire academy and New York City firefighters who died that day.

Eyes filled with tears as the names of those who died were read and the lights of parked police patrol cars and fire trucks flashed in the distance.